Power Up Your Brain (2 page)

Shamanism and neuroscience: what do they have in common? They are both keys to personal health and wellness, mental excellence, spiritual awareness, growth and prosperity, improved personal relationships, a higher quality of life, and a greater ability to perform and contribute to society—to name a few benefits.

Yet, seldom have we seen these words—
shamanism
and
neuroscience
—used in the same sentence. Why is that? Because we have been living in a time of reductionism during which the realm of spirit and the domain of science have been separated, split, divided, and divorced from one another.

This was not always so. For millennia, shamans were also astronomers, wizards were scientists, spiritual seekers were explorers, and researchers were risk takers. Their opinions were valued by emperors, chieftains, tsars, kings, and potentates. That is, until the time when established authorities—the popes and princes of the powerful status quo—labeled visionaries as heretics and decreed that religion and science should follow their disparate paths.

Fortunately, the relationship of spirit and matter, while subjugated to the background, was never totally erased from human consciousness. Scientists have always suspected that a connection, preserved in some basal paradigm, exists between the soul and the brain. And this thought began to reemerge a few decades ago, phrased as the mind-body-spirit connection.

And now two men, two seers—a shaman and a scientist—are combining their experiences and expertise to explore the totality that includes all of the spirit world and all of the scientific world— as One.

Power Up Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Enlightenment
is a collaboration of Dr. David Perlmutter, a neuroscientist and practicing neurologist; and Dr. Alberto Villoldo, a medical anthropologist and shaman. Unlike the majority of scientists who have investigated meditation and the extraordinary feats of yogis, both of them are hands-on clinicians, helping countless patients heal their emotions, repair their brains, and enlighten their minds. Therefore, this book’s message is a reunion of ethereal spirit and hard science. And its content is a spiritual blessing and a physical benefit to you—and to others with whom you share this story.

Why? Because
Power Up Your Brain
is blend of deep shamanic truths and profound scientific facts.

Do David Perlmutter and Alberto Villoldo dare to use the words
neuroscience
and
shamanism
in the same sentence? Yes! Resoundingly, yes. Because, in effect, neuroscience and shamanism are cut from the same cloth, threads in the same fabric of human history and human evolution.

PREFACE

David Perlmutter:
Explorations, Then and Now

As we followed the shaman up the mountain along the ancient stone pathway crafted by the Inca some six centuries ago, the silence was broken only by the sound of his flute. Our destination was Ollantaytambo, near Machu Picchu, not only one of Peru’s best-preserved archaeological sites but also a site of great spiritual significance.

My companions seemed to be energized by their spirited endeavor, yet I was more concerned with the pounding in my head. The shock to my body of traveling quickly, from sea level in Florida to almost 10,000 feet in the Andes, focused my attention on the inescapable fact that I was suffering from shortness of breath and blurred vision. Thankfully, my wife and two children seemed less affected.

One of the shamans traveling with us noticed my distress and offered me a handful of coca leaves to chew. I decided to try it instead of the acetazolamide I carried in my backpack in case of high-altitude sickness. Soon I felt numbness in my mouth and, very quickly, my symptoms disappeared!

How did this descendant of the Inca know that the leaves of the
Erythroxylum coca
plant could help with the symptoms of high-altitude sickness? The obvious answer is that it was the benefit of ancient wisdom, yet that only partially satisfied me. It seemed improbable that some hapless forebear had been chosen to chew his way through all the local plants to check their medicinal use. Meanwhile, my companion studied my countenance, much as I would observe my own patients. Meeting his gaze, I realized that his knowledge of the coca leaf did not come from lessons learned but was rooted in a profound knowledge of soul and spirit—not a concept that sat easily with my Western medical training, and yet I felt moved to accept it.

My journey to the Andes in the company of my family was inspired by my wife after she had read several books by Dr. Alberto Villoldo. We chose this expedition
because
Alberto was leading it, and it was not long after my healing encounter that I had a chance to speak with him. Our conversation flowed naturally, without elaborate introductions, and soon revolved around a discussion of the sustainability of cultures living seemingly off the grid. Later that same day, back at our hotel, I asked Alberto about the shaman’s apparently unique ability to access complex information by means of intuition.

“That has been my mission for the past thirty years,” Alberto replied, explaining that he had made it his life’s work to discover how such unassuming individuals are able to amass such a vast compendium of information. “It is not knowledge that comes from others,” he continued. “It comes from the source of all knowledge, which is the Great Spirit. The sages are able to tap into this wisdom, and to a certain extent we all have the potential to do this, not just indigenous peoples. After all, there have been individuals throughout the ages and in all cultures who were considered enlightened.”

I returned to my medical practice serving patients with a variety of challenging brain disorders, my treatment plans always integrating lifestyle issues and nutritional interventions with standard pharmaceutical-based approaches. This less than traditional neurological methodology allowed me to gain a deep understanding of health issues while retaining a mind-set that was open to new ideas. Nevertheless, I continued to be challenged by patients who suffered diseases that were well beyond the scope of neurology alone, including cancer, advanced arthritis, diabetes, and other equally challenging disorders.

I began to focus on the small but growing number of patients who were actually able to regain their health despite what could have been a diagnosis of incurable disease. What was it about these patients that turned things around? The answer was presented to me late one Friday afternoon during a consultation with a woman suffering from chronic progressive multiple sclerosis, a frequently fatal and crippling auto-immune brain disorder.

We had placed Beth on our standard array of nutritional supplements, specific essential fatty acids, and nutrient injections for the disorder several years before. Although her decline had slowed somewhat, she was forced to use a walker and even a wheelchair at times. That afternoon, however, my staff and I were astounded to see her walking down our hallway unassisted.

“We are putting you on our miracle list,” I told her, referring to the growing number of our patients whose improvements could not be explained by medical science.

In the examining room, we explored what had changed in her life and to what she attributed her miraculous improvement.

“I have been studying shamanism for a few years,” she replied, scrutinizing my face for any sign of familiarity with the term. “Basically, I’ve gained the ability to tap into what I call
healing
energy
,” Beth continued. “Not only am I doing so much better as far as my MS is concerned, but I also feel really peaceful and positive about my life. I’ve been practicing some meditation techniques for years,” she explained, “but they never really clicked until about three months ago.”

Over the coming months, I began to notice that we were putting more and more people on the miracle list. And it was becoming clear to me that, overwhelmingly, the patients who achieved the most profound recoveries were those engaged in some form of meditative or spiritual practice. Whether they repeated affirmations, meditated, or prayed in some fashion, virtually all of these patients were somehow connecting with what the shaman had referred to as the Great Spirit.

There were several other characteristics in the lifestyles of our miracle-list patients that began to stand out in addition to their spiritual practices. Many of them had adopted the practice of fasting from time to time. Almost all of them engaged in some form of physical exercise. And an overwhelming number were taking some form of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The use of this omega-3 supplement was no doubt the result of my personal enthusiasm for it; indeed, I later discovered that it has a special attribute that was probably playing a much larger role in enhancing the efficacy of lifestyle changes in my patients than I had previously imagined.

Over the next three years, my encounters with Alberto evolved into a close friendship, and we realized that we should put our heads together and collaborate. For it had become clear to us that access to the Great Spirit or Divine Energy—that natural force which is called by so many names—is available to all. In a sense, we are all shamans, and the most advanced teachings in cellular biology are validating lifestyle activities that, for centuries, have been paving the way to enlightenment through meditative practices not just for the chosen few but for all who care to learn. Our collaboration explores the implications of this not only for individuals but for all of humanity.

Alberto Villoldo:
Journey from the Brain Laboratory to Enlightenment

Over time, I grew accustomed to the stench of formaldehyde. Stinky five-gallon vats held all kinds of brains—sheep brains, cow brains, human brains—but it was the only laboratory space I was able to wrangle from the biology department at San Francisco State University. And so, under these conditions, surrounded by hundreds of brains, I conducted my research into how the mind creates psychosomatic health or disease and how shamans are able to cure illness.

One day, two years into my research, I realized that I had been viewing the mind through the wrong lens. I had been trying to understand a spiritual tradition of indigenous America by looking at changes in brain and blood chemistry. The following week, I resigned my post at the university and shut down my lab. And before the month was over, I had purchased a one-way ticket to the Peruvian Amazon to study the shamans in their own environment. My best friend, a medical student, gave me a very large hunting knife as a gift, with a note that said, “You might need this in the Upper Amazon.” Everyone I knew, including my own family, thought I was mad to throw away a promising career in academia to follow a harebrained dream of being an explorer and adventurer. I had my own doubts and reservations, but I shared them with no one. I was a city boy who had never set foot in the jungle. But I was sure of one thing: I would not find answers about the mind in a laboratory.

I spent the next quarter of a century traveling and studying with the most renowned sages of the Americas. During that time, I witnessed extraordinary cures—persons whom Western medicine would have long given up on returned to health through ways I could only ascribe to a miracle or spontaneous remission. Over time, I became an apprentice to the shamans and learned their healing practices and methodologies. Yet part of me always felt like an outsider. One old Indian I worked with for many years, a man who eventually became my mentor, explained to me: “That’s because your God is a descending God. He comes down from the heavens on rare occasions to touch those of us here on the Earth; whereas our deity is an ascending divinity who rises from the Earth like the golden corn and resides among us. Our creative force is known as Pachamama, the Divine Mother.”

The sages I studied with worked with the Divine Mother, an energy or intelligence they were capable of interacting with to heal their patients. They believed that we ourselves
are
this divine energy embodied in matter, much like ribbons of sunlight that wrap themselves around the trunks of trees and then release their light when we place a log into the fire. They claimed they were able to
see
emanations of this energy around the body of a person in the form of a luminous matrix. Dark spots in the matrix indicate the presence of disease, they said, even if the illness had not yet manifested in the physical body.